i can't believe how very busy i have been over the last month. it seems that every single blog entry was done on the run, on my way to something else. but now, things have finally started to settle down and i am finding time to breathe again. no complaints, or course, I love being busy as much as i love not being busy, as long as there is an equal share of both in the long run. my motto used to be "i thrive on stress", and it was true. at the time. not any more, of course. i like stopping to smell the flowers as regularly as possible. tonight i am smelling the flowers and plan to wax lyrical for as long as i damn feel like it. so go make yourself a cuppa (if you feel like sticking around), settle in all nice and comfy and click on the link below. i'm a'feelin' chatty.

if you don't feel like reading my pith, please go directly to the latest photo gallery albums from Nikko

everyone has been astonished at how magnificent the weather has been here, and i would like to believe that the gods of weather have seen fit to reward me for surviving the last punishing winter of endless snow and rain and -8 > -10 degree nights. but i fear that the time will soon come when the grey skies will return. may i mention that tonight it's -3 outside, i think the coldest we've been so far this year.

actually, the snows - when they come - will be fun, and my teaching colleagues are planning a skiing weekend at nagano later this month, staying at a resort. i am looking forward to checking out another new part of japan. my little one week holiday has given me the taste for travel again. speaking of which... (nice segue)

nikko was everything i heard it would be and more. quite possibly the quintessential japan architecture-and-old-culture experience. i met with amanda on tuesday morning (the 30th) at asakusa station and we caught the tobu limited express (for 1320 yen).

2 hours later we met christian and yuiko at nikko station and went to eat some yuba. christian had e-mailed "yuba yuba yuba", amanda said to me "you'll love yuba", i asked (innocently enough) "who's yuba?", she cracked up laughing and proceeded to tell everyone who would listen "she said "who's yuba?"!" while i smiled lopsidedly and gazed up into the distance turning pink. anyway, she was right. i loved yuba.

after lunch and an extended coffee and cake session, christian and yuiko headed back into tokyo (they had stayed the 2 nights previous up in chuzenji, in arctic conditions) and amanda and i wandered up the road to the daiyagaura hostel. pretty good value at 3100 yen, including breakfast. they weren't very busy and we got a room to ourselves. the only other visitors were 2 american brothers (with whom we played uno till curfew time - yes, virtually all japanese accom has "curfew" time - lights out, doors locked) and 2 singaporeans with whom we shared our breakfast table with.

we thought we'd try our luck at getting up the mountain to chuzenji late in the afternoon, so we could spend the whole of new years eve day at the temples and head back to tokyo at a leisurely pace.... but...

amanda (a fluent japanese speaker) feel asleep on the bus up the mountain (a good time to mention the 24 hairpin bends up the hill and the 48 hairpin bends on the way down....) and somehow we got off the bus 5 km past our primary destination: kegon falls. and it was 4 in the afternoon and getting dark already. now, one might imagine that in this situation things may have gone a little sour...what with the -7 degree temperature and 3 feet of snow and 5 foot icicles on the buildings all around and the next bus not coming through for another 45 minutes..... but, no. we have an absolute ball. after we got through the giggles (a frequent event with me and amanda) at the ridiculousness of the situation, we waded through the snow and skated the icey roads down to a nearby eneos petrol station.

the station was empty when we opened the door, but there was a big gas heater in the middle of the room and a big teapot on top of it. we called out a few times and soon heard a call. an old woman came out of the house next door and limped over with a curious smile. it turned out that she and her husband were the owners of the station and that he was away on a petrol run to the other side of the lake.

she was a delightful woman and a gracious host, promptly setting us up on chairs around the heater and pouring us cups of [green] tea. she told us that she was from tokyo originally, and that she loved living in chuzenji in summer but that the winters were hard. 2 nights before it had been -18. she had a thermomoter that read -7 at the time we were there. she endured me taking photos with good grace and jumped up and put her arms around amanda when she refused to be photographed.

the bus route went right past the station and she was able to look out into the night, up the hill a little and see the lights of the bus coming through the trees so that we didn't have to go outside until we absolutely had to. we said our farewells and clambered onto the empty bus and survived 48 hairpin turns without throwing up.... and vowed to get up early the next day and try chuzenji again.

7.30 am breakfast at the hostel, 8.30 am farewells and by 9.30 we were in chuzenji (getting off at the right stop this time....), watching monkeys trot through carparks, icicle ridden waterfalls and people slipping over on icey foorpaths in the exceptionally gusty winds. it was bloody freezing, but well worth the 3 hours we spent there. we walked along the lake to the chuzenji temple (oh.my.god.the wind was incredible, it was actually whistling), stopping in on the way for another fortituous oba-san (old woman/grandmother) experience.

now check the mole! i have a mole in exactly the same place - ever so slightly off to the right. so we bonded over our moles and a cup of tea and the cold and half an hour later we wandered back outside, delighted.

you can check out the rest of the pics from our morning at chuzenji here.

need to refill your cuppa? i sure do. might have a quick steaming bath too. ah, but first let me expound the joys of the japanese bathtub and it's ever-unfolding range of options.... i have only JUST found out that i can leave the water in the tub and reheat it night after night after night! OK, you may think that sounds gross, but wait! japanese families do not wash themselves in the bath (and neither do i), you wash yourself with the shower hose standing on the floor beside the bathtub. japanese bathrooms are one big shower recess, and they are designed to save water. you soap up and rinse off first, then climb into the tub. whole families use the same water for a few nights running. of course, water is a little expensive here, and we all pay a water bill every month or so. i really enjoyed reading about karla's japanese bath experience over at confessions of a grade school role model. actually, her entry about sento and onsen is very funny too.

anyway, i'm off to the bath.

ps don't worry, you won't be subjected to this verbose blow by blow account for every day of my holiday. the rest of it was pretty laid back and quiet.